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Next to Father's little grocery shop, there lived a lady and her son. Her name was Chin Lian (陳蓮) and everyone in the village called her son Ah Fan because he was half African and half Hakka Chinese. Actually Chin Lian's madam surname was Cao (曹 for Cao Cao 曹操). She took her husband's surname Chen (陳). Ms Cao Lian (her madam name) was a Tongyangxi (童養媳 or child-bride) to a man bearing the surname Chen (No one remembers his full name). Mr Chen's parents were in Tang Shan (唐山 China) and he had an uncle, father's younger brother, in Jamaica (占美加). Before she was officially married to Mr Chen the uncle of Mr Chen, in Jamaica, sent for him saying that he needed a close relative to help him to run the business. So Mr Chen decided to go to Jamaica with Ms Cao Lian instead of being a tin mine worker in the village. However, Ms Cao Lian did not want to go and told Mr Chen to send for her after he had made plenty of money. Actually Ms Cao Lian did not want to leave her parents who were also living in Kampong Sayap.

Several years later, Mr Chen sent for Ms Cao Lian. At those time it would take months by ship from Malaya to Jamaica. She was too afraid of going alone and she decided not to go. Several months later, Mr Chen again begged Ms Cao Lian to come to Jamaica to join him. Again Ms Cao Lian declined. Then Mr Chen wrote and said that he would get married if she refused to join him. Ms Cao Lian wrote to Mr Chen asking for his first born son if he were to get married there. Mr Chen agreed. He married a black Jamaica girl.

Several years later, as promised, Mr Chen sent his first born son to Ms Cao Lian. Having had a son she took her husband's surname Chen and was known as Madam Chen Lian. In order to respect the son of Chen Lian those children who were younger than him called him Ahfan Kuo (亞番哥 or elder brother Ah Fan).

Believing that no girl would want to marry her son when he grew up Chen Lian bought a baby Hakka girl as a Tongyangxi for her son. Many years later, after the war, Ahfan Guo had a few children and no one called his children Ahfan Zai (亞番仔) because they looked more Chinese than Ahfan Kuo.

Since Father started the business of rubber and tin ore dealing with his partner, Huang Renan (黃仁安), in Pusing town, he was very busy and seldom returned to Sayap Village. But he was still the village chief. First Uncle (Father's younger brother) was running the grocery shop with the help of Grandmother. Father's brothr-in-law, He Cai (何財), the husband of Father's First Younger sister, was doing the job of smoking (cooking) the rubber sheets in the smoke-house (煙房), an air-tight two story large shed built of wood. The smoke-house was erected near a pond that the village folks called Lower Pond (下塘).

All the rubber sheets collected in Pusing were transported by a lorry to the smoke-house. There were four large cement water tanks. He Cai had to fill up the tanks with water by a water pump that was installed near the pond. Sometimes it took him two to three hours to fill up the tanks. Seeing him struggle to fill the water tanks the children of Father often gave He Cai a hand on pumping water. Father had to employ two or three women from the village to help He Cai scrubbing off the dirt from all the rubber sheets with water before they were being hung up with bamboo rods on the upper floor of the smoke-house. When smoke floor was full with rolls and rolls of washed rubber sheets. A few large rubber tree logs were placed in a specially constructed large fire place with a cement top for burning the logs. It required smoke but not fire to smoke the rubber sheets. Therefore during the process of smoking all the windows and doors of the smoke-house were closed air-tight. After about a week or more days of smoking the rubber sheets were then 'cooked' that is they became transparent. The value of 'cooked' rubber sheets were worth much more than the raw rubber sheets.

When the cement tanks were filled with water and work for washing the rubber sheets would not start until the next day. My siblings would invite their friends to come for swimming in the tanks which were about four feet high which were just like swimming pools to the kids. They all had a good time. Some of the kids would spent a night in the smoke-house with my sibling and I. It was just like a slumber party. It had been going on like that for a long time until the Emergency (a war between the British Colonial Authorities and the Malayan Communist Party) came.

School day was six days a week. From Monday to Friday was ordinary school days but on Saturday the pupils had to go back to school for essay writing which usually lasted until about eleven o'clock in the morning. Then we went home for lunch. After lunch instead of allowing his children to have free time Grandmother sent us, her grandchildren, to a village school for a few hours to stop us for running wild. The village school was in an empty house because the family of the house owner had relocated his family to live in the State of Pahang in the east coast of Malaya. The school teacher was called Zhang Fulai (張福來) whose profession was tapping rubber. In actual fact he was studying Junior Middle Two at Yoke Choy High School Ipoh (怡保育才中學) when the Japanese came. It was too old for him to go back to school after the war. He became a rubber tapper. His calligraphy was very good. Every year, a week or so before the Chinese New Year, one could see him writing New Year Couplets to sell in the market. Unfortunately, during the Emergency, the the 'Hill People' from the village suspected he was was a police informer and so one day they had him killed while he was tapping rubber in his own rubber plantation.

On Sunday morning, after breakfast, a group of boys, including me, from the village would go to the rubber plantations, near the jungle, to collect firewood. There were plenty of small broken branches and twigs on the ground. Twigs were very good to start a fire for cooking in the kitchen. The boys used lalang (tall grass) as ropes to tie their collected firewood. It was fun as they talked and sang the songs they learned from school, while they picked. Usually they returned home before lunch time. I remembered Grandmother always fried a duck egg for my lunch and according to her I deserved it.

It was time to catch birds after lunch. There were a lot of quails and sparrows in the bush. The boys usually set traps to catch them. Even now I still remember how to make a bird cage by using bamboo sticks that I had cut into small strips.